The Warren Buffett investment philosophy calls for a long-term investment horizon, where a five year holding period, or even longer, would fit right into the strategy. How would such a strategy have worked out for an investment into Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE: MRO)? Today, we examine the outcome of a five year investment into the stock back in 2015.

MRO 5-Year Return Details

Start date:

05/07/2015

$10,00005/07/2015

$2,10705/06/2020

End date:

05/06/2020

Start price/share:

$28.92

End price/share:

$5.60

Starting shares:

345.78

Ending shares:

376.16

Dividends reinvested/share:

$1.32

Total return:

-78.94%

Average annual return:

-26.75%

Starting investment:

$10,000.00

Ending investment:

$2,107.02

As we can see, the five year investment result worked out poorly, with an annualized rate of return of -26.75%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $2,107.02 today (as of 05/06/2020). On a total return basis, that’s a result of -78.94% (something to think about: how might MRO shares perform over the next 5 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

Dividends are always an important investment factor to consider, and Marathon Oil Corp. has paid $1.32/share in dividends to shareholders over the past 5 years we looked at above. Many an investor will only invest in stocks that pay dividends, so this component of total return is always an important consideration. Automated reinvestment of dividends into additional shares of stock can be a great way for an investor to compound their returns. The above calculations are done with the assuption that dividends received over time are reinvested (the calcuations use the closing price on ex-date).

Based upon the most recent annualized dividend rate of .2/share, we calculate that MRO has a current yield of approximately 3.57%. Another interesting datapoint we can examine is ‘yield on cost’ — in other words, we can express the current annualized dividend of .2 against the original $28.92/share purchase price. This works out to a yield on cost of 12.34%.

One more investment quote to leave you with:“The underlying principles of sound investment should not alter from decade to decade, but the application of these principles must be adapted to significant changes in the financial mechanisms and climate.” — Benjamin Graham